Riders in the men's and women's Tour de France will take in some eye-catching views in next year’s race as they pedal through the hills and valleys of Britain.
The men's edition of the 2027 Tour begins in the Scottish city of Edinburgh on July 2, with the opening stage passing through Midlothian and the Scottish borders before ending in Carlisle, outside the city's medieval castle.
The following day, an undulating second stage takes the peloton from Keswick in the heart of the Lake District's National Park before ending on The Strand in the northwest city of Liverpool, home of The Beatles and the city's beloved soccer team.
A hilly third stage on July 4 takes place in Wales.
Starting from Welshpool in Powys, it snakes through the south Welsh valleys and features climbs up Côte de Rhigos and Côte de Caerffili in the closing stages before finishing in Cardiff.
It is the first time both Grand Départs — the cycling term for Tour race starts — have taken place in the same country, outside of France.
Britain has proved a very welcoming host in the past.
“The UK has always welcomed the Tour with passion and pride, and the route details we are revealing today reflect the beauty and diversity of Britain’s terrain,” Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme said. “Bringing both Grand Départs here is a testament to the strength of our partnership with British Cycling and the enthusiasm of the UK.”
The 2014 men's Tour began in the Yorkshire region of northern England and drew huge crowds, following on from the equally enthusiastic welcome when the 2007 Tour started in London.
The women's 2027 Tour starts July 30 from the civic hall in Leeds in northern England, before crossing the Pennines to Manchester.
The next day riders go through the Peak District National Park and tackle the Côte de Snake Pass before crossing the line in the South Yorkshire city of Sheffield.
The women's peloton says au revoir to Britain after a Sunday showpiece third stage in London on Aug. 1.
“Starting the Tour de France in Leeds is a strong choice, closely linked to this heritage and to the enthusiasm of a public that knows and loves the Tour,” women's Tour director Marion Rousse said. "These stages clearly reflect the race’s ambition: to continue growing women’s cycling and to inspire future generations.”
Last year's men's race started in the French city of Lille, and Slovenian cycling star Tadej Pogačar went on to win the overall title for the fourth time.
Olympic champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt of France won the women's race at the first attempt.
This year's men's race starts in Barcelona on July 4. The host of the 1992 Olympic Games previously hosted stages but never the start. This year’s women’s race begins in Lausanne, Switzerland.
A social impact initiative called “Joy” will be promoted during the 2027 Grand Départ. It aims to tackle inactivity, improve mental wellbeing and help communities prosper.
Organizers will work alongside governments, local councils and community representatives to create opportunities for young people and also break down existing barriers for girls in sport.
British Cycling hopes to recruit more than 7,000 volunteers for the Grand Départ.
AP cycling: https://apnews.com/hub/cycling
FILE - Reigning World Champion Tadej Pogacar indicates five as he celebrates winning his fifth in a row Il Lombardia, Tour of Lombardy cycling race, in Bergamo, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025. (Gian Mattia D'Alberto/LaPresse via AP, File)
FILE - France's Pauline Ferrand-Prevot pedals during the women's Elite road race, at the road cycling World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
FILE - Tour de France winner Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey, celebrates on the podium after the last stage of the Tour de France cycling race in Paris, France, Sunday, July 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, file)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers have proposed creating a new agency with $2.5 billion to spur production of rare earths and the other critical minerals, while the Trump administration has already taken aggressive actions to break China's grip on the market for these materials that are crucial to high-tech products, including cellphones, electric vehicles, jet fighters and missiles.
It’s too early to tell how the bill, if passed, could align with the White House’s policy, but whatever the approach, the U.S. is in a crunch to drastically reduce its reliance on China, after Beijing used its dominance of the critical minerals market to gain leverage in the trade war with Washington. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a one-year truce in October, by which Beijing would continue to export critical minerals while the U.S. would ease its export controls of U.S. technology on China.
The Pentagon has shelled out nearly $5 billion over the past year to help ensure its access to the materials after the trade war laid bare just how beholden the U.S. is to China, which processes more than 90% of the world's critical minerals. To break Beijing's chokehold, the U.S. government is taking equity stakes in a handful of critical mineral companies and in some cases guaranteeing the price of some commodities using an approach that seems more likely to come out of China's playbook instead of a Republican administration.
The bill that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., introduced Thursday would favor a more market-based approach by setting up the independent body charged with building a stockpile of critical minerals and related products, stabilizing prices, and encouraging domestic and allied production to help ensure stable supply not only for the military but also the broader economy and manufacturers.
Shaheen called the legislation “a historic investment” to make the U.S. economy more resilient against China’s dominance that she said has left the U.S. vulnerable to economic coercion. Young said creating the new reserve is “a much-needed, aggressive step to protect our national and economic security.”
Rep. Rob Wittman, R.-Va., introduced the House version of the bill.
When Trump imposed widespread tariffs last spring, Beijing fought back not only with tit-for-tat tariffs but severe restrictions on the export of critical minerals, forcing Washington to back down and eventually agree to the truce when the leaders met in South Korea.
On Monday, in his speech at SpaceX, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the Pentagon has in the past five months alone “deployed over $4.5 billion in capital commitments” to close six critical minerals deals that will “help free the United States from market manipulation.”
One of the deals involves a $150 million of preferred equity by the Pentagon in Atlantic Alumina Co. to save the country's last alumina refinery and build its first large-scale gallium production facility in Louisiana.
Last year, the Pentagon announced it would buy $400 million of preferred stock in MP Materials, which owns the country's only operational rare earths mine at Mountain Pass, California, and entered into a $1.4-billion joint partnership with ReElement Technologies Corp. to build up a domestic supply chain for rare earth magnets.
On Wednesday, Trump announced in a proclamation that the U.S. is “too reliant” on foreign-sourced critical minerals and directed his administration to negotiate better deals. He said possible remedies would include minimum import prices for certain critical minerals.
“Reshoring manufacturing that’s critical to our national and economic security is a top priority for the Trump administration,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson.
The drastic move by the U.S. government to take equity stakes has prompted some analysts to observe that Washington is pivoting to some form of state capitalism to compete with Beijing.
“Despite the dangers of political interference, the strategic logic is compelling,” wrote Elly Rostoum, a senior fellow at the Washington-based research institute Center for European Policy Analysis. She suggested that the new model could be “a prudent way for the U.S. to ensure strategic autonomy and industrial sovereignty.”
Companies across the industry are welcoming the intervention from Trump's administration.
“He is playing three-dimensional chess on critical minerals like no previous president has done. It's about time too, given the military and strategic vulnerability we face by having to import so many of these fundamental building blocks of technology and national defense,” NioCorp's Chief Communications Officer Jim Sims said. That company is trying to finish raising the money it needs to build a mine in southeast Nebraska.
In addition to trying to boost domestic production, the Trump administration has sought to secure some of these crucial elements through allies. In October, Trump signed an $8.5 billion agreement with Australia to invest in mining there, and the president is now aggressively trying to take over Greenland in the hope of being able to one day extract rare earths from there.
On Monday, finance ministers from the G7 nations huddled in Washington over their vulnerability in the critical mineral supply chains.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has led several rounds of trade negotiations with Beijing, urged attendees to increase their supply chain resiliency and thanked them for their willingness to work together “toward decisive action and lasting solutions,” according to a Treasury statement.
The bill introduced on Thursday by Shaheen and Young would encourage production with both domestic and allied producers.
Congress in the past several years has pushed for legislation to protect the U.S. military and civilian industry from Beijing's chokehold. The issue became a pressing concern every time China turned to its proven tactics of either restricting the supply or turned to dumping extra critical minerals on the market to depress prices and drive any potential competitors out of business.
The Biden administration sought to increase demand for critical minerals domestically by pushing for more electric vehicle and windmill production. But the Trump administration largely eliminated the incentives for those products and instead chose to focus on increasing critical minerals production directly.
Most of those past efforts were on a much more limited scale than what the government has done in the past year, and they were largely abandoned after China relented and eased access to critical minerals.
Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. AP writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to the report.
FILE - NioCorp Chief Operating Officer Scott Honan tells a group of investors about the plans for a proposed mine during a tour of the site Oct. 6, 2021, near Elk Creek in southeast Nebraska. (AP Photo/Josh Funk, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shake hands before their meeting at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - Workers use machinery to dig at a rare earth mine in Ganxian county in central China's Jiangxi province on Dec. 30, 2010. (Chinatopix via AP, File)
